Chris, arguably the most prolific, outspoken and successful coach of recent times in the NZFC structure, has taken the NZ club football scene to new heights with his Waitakere United side wining a second successive Oceania league final and thereby qualifying for a return(ing) trip to the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan in December this year. Past winners of this competition include AC Milan, Sport Club Internacional and Sao Paulo FC. Boca Juniors, FC Barcelona and Liverpool FC respectively were the beaten finalists.
Chris has, as a coach, given a lot of his time to the beautiful game in NZ for over twenty years now. Whilst mostly involved with senior teams, Chris has never forgotten that the foundation of the game and its development are firmly rooted with the development of the young players at club level. When asked to run a coaching clinic for Pukekohe’s youth players Chris didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation with a broad smile on his face.
“No worries; we share a love for the game so we’ll make some time to spread our love a bit.”
Chris said; and on the 29th of June we will be able to welcome Chris at Bledisloe Park and watch him part with some of his extraordinary knowledge and coaching talent for the benefit of our young footballers.
There are 3,275,000 reasons why this man, Mr. Neil Emblen, should be taken seriously, when you hear him talk football or when you see him strut his stuff. All of these reasons are British Pounds, namely the accumulated sum of hard cash English professional football clubs have paid in transfer fees for Neil’s services over a 12 year, albeit injury marred, playing career between 1993 and 2005 with stints at Millwall, Wolves, Crystal Palace and the Canaries (Norwich City). Neil has well and truly seen the good, the bad and the ugly of professional football. Since 2005 Neil has made his presence felt as a towering ‘All-rounder’ in the NZFC scene and with the now defunct ‘New Zealand Knights aka Kingz’. For the last couple of seasons Neil has been the back-bone of the Waitakere United’s defence, enjoying two consecutive O-League final wins with the team.
Lately Neil has been dedicating his sparse spare time to furthering his coaching credentials and his ambition to give back to the game that gave him so much. Recently Neil signed a one year extension of his agreement with Waitakere United, encompassing his roles as player, assistant coach to Chris and as the Director of Youth Development.
“The chance to work fulltime in the game with Waitakere United has been fantastic and I have loved every minute of it from putting our community programmes together, working with our Academy and National Youth League players and of course working with Chris and the first team. There is so much potential for the game to grow and develop further in our region, I’m excited about the chance to continue on the many projects we have underway.”
Neil stated after signing his new contract.
Like Chris, Neil has the desire to help the game of football to develop its enormous potential in New Zealand fully and it didn’t take the big fella long to accept the invitation to Pukekohe to share some of his wealth of experience with our young aspiring footballers.
Chris and Neil will be at Pukekohe Bledisloe Park on Sunday, 29th June 2008 and they will conduct two training sessions for our youth grades.
The sessions are:
09:00 – 10:00hrs. 10th and 11th grade players
10:30 – 11:30 hrs 12th to 17th grade players.
All interested players must register with the PAFC Director of Coaching, Tony Wisnewski, on 09 2381658.
Both sessions will need to be kept to a maximum of 50 players.
Coaches of all youth teams are encouraged to attend these sessions to observe and assist Chris and Neil were possible. Chris and Neil will be available for a short time after the sessions for questions and answers or simply a friendly chat.